


Ebb and Flow

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: apparently this is now a dumping ground for anything i don't want to title, fermet's pov is itself a content warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: Miscellaneous drabbles that really don't stand on their own as fics but which I'm publishing anyway, originally posted on tumblr. Novel spoilers on individual chapters.





	1. Huey - Flames, Fire, Excessive Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how graphic it is, but someone does burn to death in this one. 
> 
> 1710 spoilers, I think.

He fights his way close enough to the flames that they fight back. Fire spits from the pyre in angry bursts, but he does not flinch when it singes his hand; he keeps reaching for her — for an _explanation_. Piercing screams tear through the drumming of his heartbeat, yet the fear, this violent, shaking fear comes from her _eyes_ , eyes which lock onto his and do not leave, eyes which spit accusations that burn where the fire cannot touch. 

_This is your fault_. 

How many nights now has he crumpled, wishing, praying that this _end_? First he had been angry — no, anger is too weak a word. He had been _wrathful_ , wrathful because they had turned against his mother, but he had not wanted _this_. No one wants to watch their whole world burn. 

(He will tell himself, in time, that he wants nothing more. He will be a liar.)

There is no air to breathe, only billowing smoke and something worse — ashes already being swept up by the breeze. It is a beautiful day; the scent of flowers, now in full bloom, should rightly be the most pervasive one, but instead he chokes on the smell of burning flesh. It’s indistinguishable from charcoal until it is not, and then it is so acrid that it twists his stomach into knots. 

Yet even as the flames grow higher, even as the dizzying horror wells up inside of him, he cannot bring himself to move. She is still looking at him, as her hair begins to burn, as the fire climbs to her neck, as her skin peels away and splits and melts like candle-wax. She is still looking at him, as her cries degenerate into hacking coughs, then into silence, gaping mouth and soundless scream. He is not sure if she is still alive, but she is looking at him — and he cannot look away. 

 _This is your fault_ , he imagines her saying, and his guilt is not enough. 

Perhaps it would be right, then, if his shirt sleeve caught fire, if it spread to his body, if it swallowed him up like it has swallowed everyone else. Perhaps that is what’s meant to happen. 

But it does not. 

He is pulled back by an arm not strong enough to belong to one of the men — not even _forceful_  enough to move him, in truth, but he has exhausted all the fight in him, and when a hand grasps his shoulder and tugs him away he is half-grateful to be able to give into it. 

“You’ll get hurt if you stand too close.”

The hand loosens its grip, and someone moves in his peripheral vision; long, fair hair shifting with the breeze. 

“That’s the thing about fire. It doesn’t care _what_  it destroys.”

There is something about these words — not the words themselves, but how they are said; phrased as though they ought to carry pity or concern, but spoken with a tone that he cannot place as either. 

“It’s horrible, isn’t it?” he asks, with the strain that comes with stifling a genuine emotion — as though he is on the verge of something, but unwilling to give into it. Tears, perhaps. Grief.

Huey swallows, finding his throat dry — from the soot, or the circumstances — and turns his head from the horror to catch a glimpse of sharp eyes through a curtain of hair. 

And he realises. 

It’s laughter — the _something_  he couldn’t place. 

He doesn’t know why he knows this. The boy isn’t laughing — but he _is_. In the same way the woman had continued to scream without making a sound, he _laughs_. It’s in his body language, the unsettling contortion of his face and the tremor of shoulders. 

This laughter, laughter which _isn’t_  laughter, will have a place somewhere in the back of his mind for eternity; on a summer day, enveloped in flame, it chills him to his bones.


	2. Luchino - Invideo, Hate

When he is shown the man in picture, he can’t look away; it’s a car crash, a bomb going off, a building collapsing — it horrifies him, in such a profound way that it satiates some morbid curiosity.

He tells himself it’s the sensation of seeing the monster from his nightmares brought to reality; he’s given the despicable act form, and he can picture it clearly now. His ancestor, fair of features and empty of heart. His ancestor, strong willed and pure of heart. Their rise. Her fall. He crumples the photograph beneath his fingertips and suppresses the tremor threatening his hand.

He doesn’t let himself look at the man in the picture again until the eve of the mission — but he sees it everywhere. He imprints the traits of Huey Laforet onto every stranger who passes by. He closes his eyes, and the image of golden eyes staring back at him is burned onto his lids.

He watches his reflection and traces the lines of his angular features, and sees a bit more of the monster every time.

He hates him —

More so now that he truly understands: this is not a monster, this is not the invention of a fairy tale. This man is the reason Luchino is alive, and this man is the reason Monica died, and this man shares his pointed nose and his narrow frame and his sharp jawline.

He tells himself: he has Monica’s eyes. He has Monica’s hair. He has Monica’s spirit.

He tells himself that he is by and far a Campanella.

Yet every time he catches his reflection he must ask himself: _is he?_

“You look a lot like him, actually, boss,” Aging tells him.

He knows. He knows, and he hates it.

He has inherited more from Huey Laforet than the shape of his nose. There is something familiar reflected in the gold of his eyes, and this — _this_ is what troubles Luchino.

He sees it in his own eyes, in the mirror, in the glare of his stiletto: hatred. Hatred, coursing through his veins like blood, staining his family tree for generations.


	3. Jacuzzi & Nice - Pulsatio, Heartbeat

The Fourth of July is her favourite holiday: it’s the one day a year that causing explosions is _festive_  and _patriotic_ and not just _dangerous_  and  _illegal_.

Nice says that if the founding fathers didn’t want them to set off fireworks in the Lincoln Park Zoo they wouldn’t have invented gunpowder, and Jacuzzi can find a few faults in this logic, but when he looks her in the eyes — he wouldn’t dare speak them. She’s a firecracker, and bad ideas light a fuse that Jacuzzi can’t bring himself to put out; the explosion might kill him, but it’s worth it to see her light up the sky. 

“C’mon, mistah, we just wanna see the monkeys!”

She is eleven and he is ten, and they’re already among the more well known troublemakers this side of the Chicago River. Jacuzzi is ‘ _a good kid, really’_  and he just ‘ _needs to stop hanging around with the wrong crowd’_ — or at least that’s what the officers tell him every time they get dragged to the police station — but they grew up on the same street and go to the same crummy school, and they’ve been coming up with bad ideas together for as long as he can remember; if Nice is from _the wrong crowd_ , then he is, too. 

“We ain’t here to cause trouble!” 

“Tough luck! Shouldn’t have gotten yourselves banned from the exhibit.”

“Listen, that wasn’t our fault —” 

“N-Nice, maybe we should just... go someplace else.”

He really doesn’t even _want_  to see the monkeys; they’re too loud, and he finds the way they move unsettling. 

“Look, mistah, you’re making my friend cry! Just let us in.”

Jacuzzi, who had _not_ been crying, opens his mouth in protest, then promptly shuts it when he realises that being accused of crying has made him start crying. He tugs at the hem of Nice’s shirt. 

“L-Let’s do this someplace else, _please_.”

“Jacuzzi...”

“Do _what_  someplace else? I knew you two were trouble.”

Nice stares up at the security guard for a minute, and maybe she’s contemplating a mature response — but Jacuzzi knows her better than that. He wants to shout _let’s just leave_ , but his voice catches in his throat. Around her, his body forgets how to function; his lungs stop taking in air and his heart stops pumping blood, and he is nothing but stillness watching a disaster unfold.

“Ah well, I was gonna show you later, but —”

He knew, really, that they weren’t just going to sit in the zoo and watch fireworks in peace — that their plans never work out that way — but her bad ideas are terrible and frightening and a little bit _beautiful_. Sure, the sound makes his ears ring, and he’s going to be coughing up soot the second he recalls how to breathe, but for a couple of seconds all he can see is stars. 

Nice’s hand grips his wrist, and of all the many things in this world capable of making his heart skip a beat, this is the best by far. 

“You tryna get yourself hurt? Move your feet!”

Unwilling legs are dragged along, stumbling; he’s limp as a puppet, staring at the inferno of shooting stars. 

“C’mon!”

Nice’s laughter is punctuated by the _bangs_  of fireworks going off, and he isn’t sure which sound does it, but one of them jumpstarts his heart. Jittery, erratic heartbeat accompanies jittery, erratic steps — he runs like a blind drunk, tripping over his own feet, and Nice’s, and every other object in place until they finally skid to a halt at the door to the reptile house. 

His heart is pounding in his head, and he almost faints — but when he stumbles, Nice catches him in her arms. 

“Jeez, Jacuzzi, your heart’s racing,” she snorts, ruffling his hair roughly. “We were only running for a couple of minutes! You okay?” 

He wants to say that the running isn’t really the _reason_ his heart’s beating so fast, but her concern makes it beat faster — and the recollection of their situation faster _still_. 

“N-Nice, we have to go!”

This time, his hand finds her wrist. They run.


	4. Lucrezia - Impatience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some vague sexual themes in this one because of Lucrezia.

It has been two weeks since their last correspondence.

It has been two weeks; two weeks and ten lovers, two weeks and four soirées, two weeks and fourteen lavish dinners. She counts the moments by the distractions she fills them with. Her mind does not wander to the question of Lotto Valentino and _when_ it will be hers if she satisfies its desire for other things – things that are more easily possessed – engaging conversation, beautiful music, soft lips, eager hands.

One day melts into the next. On Monday, she is fitted for a new dress. She hates the stillness, the hours upon hours of _stillness_. If only it were possible to have what she wants without all these unwelcome in-betweens – slow progress eats away at her forbearance the same whether it comes from Carla or her seamstress. She would like to tear the pins from her side. She would like to forget discretion and sail for Lotto Valentino herself.

She does not, because the want of some things outweighs the want of others. She makes idle chatter; idle chatter and petty pleasures, day after day after day.

On Friday, she is invited to join a royal hunt; a long afternoon of holding tightly to the waist of a nameless aristocrat and feigning gasps of wonderment with every bird he shoots down. _One, two, three_ birds. _One, two, three_ weeks since she has heard from Carla. She smiles coyly when he meets her eyes. Flirtation is a means of seizing control; it is a tactic that cannot be applied to the situation that concerns her, and so she applies it everywhere else.

Good things take time. If she were a politician, she would know this – but she has never been a politician. Hers is a methodology of passion.

The curse of lust is the ache of impatience, and she lusts for far too many things: knowledge, power, men, women, _life_.

It has been three weeks.

She counts the days by the letters she does not receive and the conquests she has not yet won.

* * *

On Saturday, Victor visits.

“For fuck’s sake – you ever heard of _patience_?”

The door is still hanging open when she begins working at the buttons of his shirt. He kicks it shut with a rude _thud_ , which should be enough to give her a start, but she only laughs, light and airy and anything _but_ startled.

“ _Lo siento_ , my sweet, it doesn’t ring a bell,” she teases, lithe fingers tracing now uncovered skin, making a study of his chest as though she is not already familiar with every inch of him. Nails scratch softly as her hand takes a slow route to settle at the nape of his neck, eliciting a grunt – of approval, or the opposite, or some indiscernible mix of the two.

“You know damn well –“ but _what_  she knows damn well is lost to a low noise at the back of his throat. Her mouth, like her spirit, is ever keen; a trail of kisses leads up from his collarbone to his lips. 

“Didn’t you say you have some big – _fuck_ ,” he manages to get a few words out between kisses, though they devolve in clarity when her hands begin to roam. “– _fuckin’_ … meeting… to get to?”

“Mm,” Lucrezia hums close to his ear. “All the more reason to hurry, darling.”

Victor drawls something, breathy and profane, but she does not bother to make out the words; they sound enough like _agreement_. 

 _You ever heard of patience_? He asks, as though she could ever bear to see an opportunity without grasping for it with wanting hands. 

* * *

“Hmm, where should I begin?”

That afternoon, Lucrezia folds herself neatly into the confessional booth. It takes a certain kind of beauty to be flattered by the scarce light streaming through the lattice, but it is the kind which she possesses; patterns of shadows dance across the white of her dress as she settles into place. 

“Since we last left of, father, I have sinned nearly thirty times,” she recounts in her most ingenuous voice. “Several times with the same man.”

Her smile is sharp, and though she kneels she does not _bow_. 

“Of course, it’s not _all_  lust, but some of my favourites are. To start, I was in the servants’ quarters the other day, and –”  
“Details won’t be necessary, Milady.”

These things are supposed to be anonymous, of course, but Lucrezia has far too distinctive a face and manner for a screen to hide her; it is a fact she is all too aware of, and amuses herself all too much with.

She supposes it’s one thing she’ll _miss_  when she has Lotto Valentino. They don’t like their churches there, so she’s heard – but she puts this out of her mind. The city brings thoughts of  _letters_  and an ongoing tally of days.

“Oh?” She purses her lips, thin brow furrowing in mock confusion. “But how can the lord forgive me if He doesn’t know _what_  he’s forgiving me for?”

The voice on the other side of the screen sounds exasperated when it answers: “If you are so… aware of this – lurid behaviour, perhaps you should seek change rather than forgiveness.”

There is a moment of silence, and then a longer moment of laughter. 

“But that wouldn’t be half as fun!” she responds when the mirth in her voice has softened. “I do _so_  enjoy hearing your reactions. How horrified you get! It’s adorable.”

The man gives a stiff _cough_. 

“That’s not the _purpose_  of confessional. If you don’t –”

She interrupts him with a _huff_  of breath. 

“If all you’re going to do is lecture me, you can skip right ahead to _absolving me of my sins_ ,” she declares, waving her hand in a dismissive gesture. 

“Patience is a _virtue_ , milady,” he tells her, as though she needs reminding. 

“Yes,” she agrees. “Have Him forgive me _that_  while you’re at it, won’t you, darling?”

* * *

Three weeks is too long by far. What sort of _anything_  takes three weeks? Five-hundred and four hours – what an absurd amount of time to wait for a letter! And she _has_  waited, so diligently. She has waited and waited, and exhausted every distraction at her disposal in the process. 

 _Want_  is a drumbeat growing louder with every repetition. 

“I miss her,” she says at dinner that night, and it is half a truth. She _does_  miss her – like she misses anything she does not have. 

“Like a child misses a toy,” her father intones. 

“Like a child misses her _favourite_  toy,” _or one of them, at least_. 

Even she is not sure whether the desire is more to hear from Carla or to hear _about_  Lotto Valentino; desire, to her is, a vague yet perverse presence. No matter what she wants, she is tired of the waiting. 

“You’re incorrigible, Lucrezia,” but when he says these words his mouth curves into a thin smile.

“I’m sure you’ll find it well worth the wait in the end.”

She might be sure of this, too, if she were a politician. 

She is not. 

Her methodology functions on passion, not _patience_.  


	5. Ennis - Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consistent writing style? What's that?

Home —

Definition: the place where one lives.

Definition: a basement bathed in candlelight. Long shadows and short vials. Noise, sometimes — words spoken under his breath as he experiments — but more often silence, precious silence. 

She knows this when she does not know anything, and because she does not know anything she does not know _better_. 

Her life is filled with definitions, then. This is the knowledge he grants her; literal and straightforward, cold and hollow, meaningful and meaningless, wholly true and somewhat  _not_. 

 _Drive me home_ , he demanded. 

_Where is ‘home’?_

She held the car door open for him, and he told her: 

_‘Home’ is where we live._

And so it is. 

* * *

The deed is done, and she does not know yet how much she is changed by it.  

They step out into the street. She unlocks the car. She holds the door open for him. It is mechanical memory, it is second nature — no, it is first nature. 

(Human nature will be _second_  to her.) 

He climbs inside and tells her: 

“Home.”

And she nods. 

 _Home_ : the place where one lives. 

She grips the steering wheel but finds that she cannot put her foot on the gas pedal. 

Memories that do not belong to her tell her: _no_. 

She has travelled this route a hundred times. She knows where it leads. It leads home. 

Memories that do not belong to her contradict, and contradict, and contradict; every fact she has been taught can be disproved by a feeling. 

Memories that do not belong to her tell her: this is what ‘home’ means.

They reach through death to paint images on the blank canvas of her mind. A man and woman sit in a sunny room, the smell of home-cooked food hangs in the air, a child laughs, they gather by the fireplace and feel —

 _I do not know what this is_.

— _love, comfort, safety,_ these memories tell her.

Time passes with laughter and song and wedding bells, arguments and tears and funeral tolls; another woman, different children, a thousand lives lived in one. A thousand lives ended by her. 

 _Which one is ‘home’?_  

— _All of them_ , these memories tell her. 

This, this, _this —_

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Szilard interrupts her thoughts — _thoughts_? It’s not as though _she_  could have any to begin with. Blank eyes are uncharacteristically vivid when they widen with surprise, and perhaps he would notice the difference if he cared. “I said _home_.”

“Yes, sir.”

She wills herself to press down on the pedal.  

Memories that do not belong to her tell her: _you_ do not have a home —

And she drives. 

* * *

He had flinched when she had reached out to take his hand, but somewhere along the way he reaches out for _hers_  himself. It has been a long, quiet walk, and he is the strangest gift she has ever been given. 

“We will be home soon, Czes.” 

He drops his head when she speaks, casts his eyes away at the word _‘home’_ ; this boy who is not a boy — who, she supposes, has lived a thousand lives and known a thousand homes. Perhaps he does not want her to call it that so soon; a home is a place where one lives, but that fact is wholly true and somewhat _not_.

“We should prepare a special dinner for you.”

Experience tells her: this is what home means. 

The sketches that man’s memories had painted onto her heart have since been filled with breathtaking colour; holidays with the Martillo family and toasts at the Alveare, moments alone with Firo and his _kindness_ , the bonds of the people she surrounds herself with, real and true, and the hope that she may one day share in them. 

Experience tells her: home is this. 

This, and this, and _this_. 

— And now home extends to the small hand holding hers.

Czeslaw only mumbles a response, but she smiles faintly, because she knows something that he has yet to learn: 

They are coming home. 


	6. Claudia - The Belief That The World Gets Better

In a red leather photo album that sits atop her great-grandparents’ mantel there are faded photographs of a sullen woman in a black dress. She is six when Felix sits her on his lap and flips through them page by page, telling her the story of a train hijacking, and a monster, and the terrorist who melted that monster’s heart with a sharp knife and the most beautiful eyes anyone will ever see (when he says this, he bops her on the nose and tells her that _she’s_ got them, too, and she giggles).

He tells her that she’d been camera shy when they’d first met — she’d always frown and turn her eyes away — but she is so _wonderful_ that it had never stopped him from taking pictures anyway. He loves her, sullen and cold, brooding and fierce, gentle and protective — he loves her all ways, because in this world of his she is the _sky_ , as breathtaking in darkness as in daylight. 

Claudia listens with wide eyes as Felix explains how the horror story turns into a love story: how this woman tried to kill the monster, and how it made his heart race so much that he asked her to marry him. He tells her that she looked striking in black and _enchanting_ in the white of her wedding dress, and the first time he saw her smile he couldn’t  _help_ but kiss her.

“Why does she look so sad?”

He tells her that growing up this woman hadn’t had the sort of life that she herself does (he’s _glad_ she has this life, he laughs, because his little star deserves the world), but that that didn’t matter in the end. She didn’t need to come from a warm, loving home to make one with him. He shows her photos with later dates: their wedding, their first dance, their first child, and slowly but surely the woman in the pictures becomes familiar. The sullen face turns into the soft, smiling face of her great-grandmother.

Her great-grandfather smiles broadly and teaches her that sometimes tragedies can become fairy tales. All it takes is a nudge in the right direction. 

He teaches her that because the world belongs to him, he gets to decide whether or not there’s a happy ending — and he tells her, ruffling her hair, that because she’s his heir the world belongs to her, too.

Claudia looks at the photographs for a long time, and decides that her world is beautiful.

* * *

She is fourteen and she decides that she will _make_  her world beautiful, whether it wants to be or not. 

She meets a mercenary with soft, sad eyes and a weak smile and a voice that trembles when she calls her giant animatronic shark _cute_ ; Claudia is too aware that she is the main character of this story to go without recognising the first page.

 _I’m a really bad person_ , this girl tells her, but she recalls that the sky does not have to be bright to be breathtaking. She makes a promise to her, that she won’t have to do any more bad things now that she’s a part of her world — that she can put that behind and move forward. She takes the weight onto her shoulders; _hers_  can carry it easily, young Atlas that she is. 

Illness is a sad story without a conclusion, and when she tells it she takes her shaking hands in hers, and makes a promise to _herself_  that, whatever it takes, she will make her epilogue brighter. It doesn’t matter where she comes from; it’s where they will go together.

She holds in her arms a mercenary with soft, sad eyes who tells her she’s a bad person then risks herself to save her. She feels so,  _so_  grateful to have a world with her in it — and then someone steals her away. 

Someone takes a part of her world that she holds so dear, and she can feel the loss of it like a hole in her heart, but she doesn’t let it slow her story down — not for a _second_. She puts out missing persons reports, she hires an investigator, she searches for her face in every crowd; she keeps her world turning. She _has_  to. 

She knows that every tragedy can become a fairy tale. All it takes is a nudge — or perhaps a shove, a _great_ , powerful shove — in the right direction. 


	7. Claudia and Illness - "I don't want to be alone right now"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going with the "a combination of Illness' survival instincts and that horrible desensitising drug lead to her probably complying with whatever SAMPLE asks her to do" possibility.

 

The first few days Illness does nothing but smile —

A side effect, the doctor tells her. It could take a little while for the drug to fully leave her system; Claudia has her back but she’s not actually  _there_ , not yet. 

The first few days she does nothing but smile, but it is not _her_ smile. It’s full and it’s euphoric, and it would be nice if it were the truth, but Claudia would rather see her queasy, uncertain grin than a lie. 

And that’s what it is. A lie. Wherever she is in her head, whatever she’s feeling, it’s a trick, and that’s not her fault, but Claudia wishes she could see it. No one should be allowed to lie to her. No one should be allowed to lie to _anyone_ in her world, because lies are poison. They soak into real emotions and try to kill them. 

Lies are poison, and Claudia does not have the antidote, which is — strange. She doesn’t run into many problems she can’t solve. She’s not sure how to handle it, at first. In a few days she’ll be herself again, but a few days feels like an eternity when one suddenly finds themselves powerless in a world that they own. 

“I think you’ll like this one!”

She handles it. 

“It’s about a vengeful spirit and — actually, I don’t want to spoil it for you! But I promise you’ll like it.”

Even not knowing _how_ , she handles it, because this is what Claudia Walken does. As an actress she is often given roles the likes of which she has never played before, and she handles it; she doesn’t hesitate, she doesn’t refuse to step outside of her comfort zone — no, she dives out head first and into whatever new experience awaits her. It’s not always familiar, and it’s not always comfortable, but she knows she will grow into, she will adapt, because this world is hers. This world is hers, and there is nothing in it that is beyond handling, as long as she remembers that she has to try. 

No one gets anywhere without trying, not even a child prodigy, not even a star, not even the girl at the centre of the universe. 

She plops the tape into the VCR and hits play. 

The first few days she goes through all the horror flicks on her filmography, and Illness smiles through the scary bits; Claudia imitates the villains her deepest, most sinister voices and nudges her with perfect timing to the jumpscares. Illness would jump or squeak, but Illness isn’t there yet, and that can’t be helped. 

What she _can_  do is ensure that she is there when Illness comes back. 

They’re watching a B-rated sci-fi movie when it drains out of her — not just the drug, not just the smile, but all emotion and any hint of colour to her complexion, everything, all at once. Claudia, space adventurer Claudia, drifts across the screen on embarrassingly visible wires, and Illness stares through the TV set. There is nothing on her face, but there is something in her eyes, something searching, and watching them Claudia can tell — she is there, she is _there_ , she is just settling back down on earth. The credits roll, and then she cannot hear the music for her sobs. 

“I can step out if you want,” she offers, touching her shoulder gently. She shakes against her hand. “If you need some time alone, it’s okay —”

“N-No! Please... please, I-I don’t — don’t want to be alone r-right now.”

She starts to say something about how she’s _sorry_ , about she _knows it’s selfish_ , about how Claudia _doesn’t **have**  to stay_, but Claudia only smiles and gives her hand a squeeze. 

“I’m...” Illness pauses for a long moment, lips trembling, and far from sobbing she barely seems to breathe, though tears streak her cheeks all the same. In a small voice she says: “I’m a bad person, aren’t I? I-... I did bad things.”

“You’re not a bad person,” Claudia assures, but she does not seem to listen. 

“I, uh, I thought maybe it was a dream, I — I, y’know, I have dreams like that s-sometimes, wh-where I’m back with — _them_ , but it...” Her gaze is somewhere else; Claudia wishes she could focus it, bring it back to the present. “It wasn’t, was it.”

She shakes her head. 

“No, it wasn’t.” Illness hears this, at least. She sniffles and turns her head, brow furrowed. “I’m sorry we didn’t find you sooner.”

“N-No it’s not your — it’s not y-your fault. I-It’s because I’m... I’m a b-bad person, that’s why —”

“You’re not a bad person,” she repeats, meeting her eyes with forceful determination. “Even if you did bad things, you’re not a bad _person_.”

“I-I’m not a _good_  person.”

“That’s okay.” 

“N-No it’s not! What a-am I, if I’m not bad and I’m n-not _good_?”

Claudia blinks slowly. It takes a long moment for her to decide how to respond, because this isn’t a difficult question for her but Illness asks it as though it _should be_ , and that puzzles her. Good and bad aren’t what Claudia’s world is about. 

“You’re you.”

“Y-Yeah, but — but —” her voice cracks again. She draws in a long, haggard breath. 

“That’s enough on its own, Illness,” Claudia smiles, and there is confidence in it. “It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re ‘good’ or not. You know, a lot of the people I love do bad things, but they make my world brighter, so who cares?”

Illness doesn’t smile at this. Her nose scrunches up and her eyebrows furrow. She rubs at her tearful eyes and after a moment she lets out another great sob and her posture crumples. She mumbles something about feeling like she’s going to be sick — she could guess at whether it is the memories or the physical withdrawal but she does not. She tells her it’s okay, _it’s okay if she is_ , and puts her arm over her shoulder to lead her to the bathroom. 

She does not smile, and that is — _honest_ , that is true, and to Claudia that is enough. She would rather see this than a lie. 

“As long as you’re you,” _as long as you’re here._  “The rest of it doesn’t make a difference to me.” 


	8. Huey & Elmer - i don’t know what the fuck true love even is but i do want to hang out with you for basically the rest of my life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "A Softer World" prompt list

Huey counts coins and does not speak for long stretches. Aside from the clink and thud of metal as it piles on his desk, there is only Elmer’s humming – a song from a Spanish comedy he had seen once as a child. Fled from the convent like a wanted criminal and stowed away in the back of a theatre troupe’s caravan, he had given the actors no choice but to let him sit in on their performance. He had been sent back to the nuns promptly, but in his flight of fancy he had demonstrated his ability to win laughter from an audience so brilliantly that they had begged him to stay and lend them his talents. The first time he had told Huey this story he had nearly snorted, humour as dry as the midsummer weather – _“If that’s true, I’d wager they were laughing at your expense._ ”

 _“That’s fine_ ,” Elmer had said, “ _It doesn’t matter_ why _people are laughing – if they’re laughing, they’re happy, and that’s just great!”_

There is no humour, dry or otherwise, to be found in Huey now. Only when attention falls on him like a spotlight do his lips twist into a smile, and even then, it’s off-kilter – not forced, exactly, not inauthentic in any way that Elmer can pinpoint, but not entirely _there_ : a phantom of real happiness which flickers into existence if one looks for it but blends into shadows when one looks away. Playacting at its most believable draws from experience to evoke genuine emotion; a comedy actor does not have to be happy to recall happiness vividly enough to live through the memory of it for a spell. When Huey smiles at Elmer, he gets the sense he is smiling for a moment that has already passed.

At the present, his brow is furrowed deep in concentration. He does not _have_ to concentrate on such a menial task – Elmer has had lengthy discussions with him whilst he reads entire books, paying full attention to both and, through his pretence of disinterest, seeming to pay attention to neither at the same time – but he chooses to, chooses not to say a word. Elmer just hums and looks out the window, watches people pass by, smiling, laughing, frowning, talking, lugging around baskets of groceries, rushing from place to place. He glances at Huey, sometimes, catches him frowning out of the corner of his eye.

Huey drops the last coin onto the table, and Elmer hops to his feet in an instant.

“Phew, that took forever.” He stretches his arms above his head and lets out a huff of breath. “Want to go get something to eat now? I’m starving.”

Huey sighs and does not move an inch. “I would have been finished sooner if I’d had help.”

“You should’ve asked then,” says Elmer, shrugging.

“I wouldn’t trust _you_ to help.”

It’s sharp, but it isn’t; Huey doesn’t intend for it to cut, and it doesn’t. Elmer smiles.

“I know I’m not the smartest person around, but I think I can _count_ just fine.” He chuckles and plops back down into his seat, resigned. “Thinking about it, though, I guess you and Monica did usually do most of the work, huh?”

He leans back in his chair until its barely perched on the rear legs and stares up at the ceiling, considering. If he were to describe his role in the operation, maybe he would call himself _moral support_ – happiness manager. Something like that. It takes him a minute to notice that Huey has fallen silent.

“Sorry,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I shouldn’t have brought her up. I know it makes you sad.”

Huey gives him an odd look, perhaps surprised by this display of consideration, but no sooner waves it off. “I wouldn’t say it makes me sad.” He sets his chin in the palm of his hand. “Thinking of her is bliss until I remember that my thoughts of her are all I have,” he continues, solemn. “And then it’s a reminder of what I have to do.”

Lowering his chair to all fours slowly, Elmer narrows his eyes in thought.

“Do you think she was your true love?”

“Hm?”

“You know, there’s always true love in stories,” – he makes a vague gesture with his hands – “and when it comes down to it, it solves everything,” he explains. “No matter what happens in the meantime. Even if there are curses and betrayals and deaths, as long as there’s true love you’ll live happily ever after in the end.”

Huey stares at him as though he’s speaking another language, eyebrow arched in question. Elmer does not have an answer to give him, and backtracks instead.

“I guess that isn’t what you need to hear right now.” He scratches his cheek, grinning. “I don’t know whether that’s really how it works, anyway. To be honest, I don’t even know what true love _is_.”

The storehouse seems hollower now, tossing the loud sound of his voice around in softer echoes as he sinks low into his chair and talks, mostly, to himself. “When I was a kid, the people in my village said they loved me. I’m pretty sure that was true to them,” he says, shrugging. “What I mean is, they weren’t lying. That’s really what they thought love _was._ But it was nothing like the way you loved Monimoni, or the way she loved you.

“And there’s Speran – he’s always telling women how much he loves them, and that’s true, too… but it’s still not the same.” The line of his mouth straightens by a fraction. “I think Niki’s in love with someone as well, but the way she shows it, it’s not the way Monimoni used to show it.” No stuttering, no blushing, no declarations – it’s a quieter thing, a glance out of the corner of her eye, a smile. “It’s different. It’s always different. So, I’m just curious – I don’t know which one’s supposed to be _true_.”

“You would know if you felt it,” answers Huey, more readily than Elmer expects. This time he is the one who stares, opening his eyes wider to search for some hint of _feeling_ in the other man’s face, but his honesty is fleeting.

“Then I haven’t felt it,” he admits after a moment – not that it is admitting anything that the two of them do not already know. Huey can only long to glide over emotion as smoothly as Elmer does, never landing a foot where he treads hard enough to leave dents. At times he’s not certain if Elmer feels anything at all, or, at least, if he _knows_ anything he feels. “That’s okay! I haven’t felt a lot of things. Maybe once I’ve figured happiness out, I can move onto love next! Or – wait, if true love leads to happiness, I guess I should figure that out first!”

Huey barely bats an eyelash. Only the corner of his lips twitch, amused by the idea of Elmer chasing down the range of human emotion one step at a time.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to start waltzing around telling people to fall in love now.” He stifles a laugh. “You’d make a terrible Cupid.”

“Hey, I helped you and Monimoni get together, didn’t I? I’d make a great Cupid!”

“You’d make a _passable_ Cupid,” he compromises. “But only thanks to your dumb luck.”

He looks over, then, a small frown at play, and adds, “I don’t believe I ever thanked you for that.”

“You didn’t,” says Elmer, laughter chasing his words. “But you smiled, which makes up for it! You smiled a lot.”

Huey nods. “Lend me some of your dumb luck and I may be able to smile that much again,” he responds seriously.

Elmer leaps to his feet, beaming. “If you’ll smile that much? Take whatever you need,” he offers, “Take _all_ my luck! I can manage without it!”

Huey laughs, only shortly, but does not stifle it this time. “I doubt that.” He shakes his head. “I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve narrowly escaped mortal injury. Without fortune on your side you would be dead within a week.”

“Yeah, probably.” It’s a morbid assessment, but Elmer grins through it; he has scars that would agree. “I know! Why not just stick with me? That way we can share the dumb luck!”

“What, stick with you _my whole life_?” Huey’s brow creases. “If we achieve immortality, Elmer, that may be a very long time.”

“So what? I don’t mind,” he says, leaning against the back of his chair. “Would _you_ mind?”

He lifts one shoulder into a half shrug and makes a noncommittal hum. “I suppose if I _had_ to choose someone to be stuck with for the rest of eternity, you would be my first choice.” He pauses for a beat, then sighs, rubbing his temple. “— Which I already regret saying out loud.”

Elmer barrels on, ignoring him: “Great! Hey, you know, I might not know anything about love, but I do want to hang out with you for basically the rest of my life – maybe that’s good enough to count,” he muses out loud, “For the happy ending, I mean! If we hang out for the rest of eternity, we might be the first people alive to actually live happily ever after!”

“That’s a bit optimistic,” mutters Huey.

“What’s wrong with being a bit optimistic?”

Tragedy and comedy are often a hair’s breadth apart; Elmer hums under his breath and recalls a play about death, betrayal, lost opportunity – what changes these things from tears to laughter is the tone, the framing, the _optimism_.

What comes out next is almost a jab at Huey’s expense: “You’ll never be happy if you don’t _want_ to be. Why not give it a try?”

“Give _what_ a try?  Spending the rest of my life with you or ‘wanting to be happy’?”

“Either one,” says Elmer. “Both!”

“I’ll have to think about it.”

 

 


	9. Fermet - An Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Fermet - An Ending". 
> 
> "If Lebreau has ever hoped to achieve anything in his life, it is to perfect this tragedy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: violence, death, etc. general Fermet warnings. spoilers for 1710 i think? I had to let this sit fully completed in my drafts for like 2 days before posting it because I didn’t want to

It’s early winter when he takes his first last breath.

It’s  _fitting_ , he will think later on, when this death has passed. Between barren trees and frozen earth, winter is a season for endings that never last. 

The blood from the initial splatter had gone cold many moments ago, but it still squirms like a living thing against his skin, like some slithering creature which even the weather cannot kill, worming its way beneath the buried knife.

Blood loss wouldn’t be the cause of it, at any rate. He can feel skin and tissue struggling to mend itself through the metal, his right lung crashing in on itself, deflating too quickly for his heaving to refill it. When he inhales it’s all liquid, all blood he has coughed up. The air does nothing but cool it before it drops into his chest and it, too, begins to crawl through the cavity, seeking veins, arteries, a path to his heart. It surprises him how much of it he is aware of, the machinations of his body. He is cells and nerves and signals, and every drop of blood and slice of flesh moves on its own: actors rushing to their places with the curtain torn open for him to see, he is audience to his own dying, his own healing, every start and stop.

There’s a certain satisfaction in it. He has seen this play out on others, but his best efforts to gauge by the quality of their screams what great suffering they must experience, his nearest imaginings, all dull in comparison to feeling it.  _Feeling_ it, and knowing what a surge of agony he has inflicted. To be intimate with this pain – well, pain always has been the paramount of intimacy.

There’s a certain elation, to know that what he has inflicted is more profound than his fantasies could provide. He can hardly focus on the dying for the knowledge that these desperate, thudding heartbeats are what they must have felt in their last moments. If he had enough blood in his body, his pulse would race: exhilaration in retrospect, superimposing his own agony on the agony he has caused. He barely notices the darkness closing in.

With the knife blocking the healing process, oxygen depletes until he loses consciousness. His last breath is through a strained grin, and it stops at the back of his throat.

Less than ten minutes later, he breathes again.

Every ending from here is another beginning.

* * *

 

He can recall clear as day the first time his father calls him in to take part in a trial. Here he discovers that stories exist for him to weave endings to.

She is a middle-aged woman, gaunt and sunken-eyed as so many are in this village. She has dirt-stained clothes, and mousy brown hair that his father takes in a vice grip to yank her head up when he addresses her.

“It’s time.”

There are already tears in her eyes when she speaks. This doesn’t surprise Lebreau. He has seen them cry upon their  _arrest_ before. “I.. I’m innocent —”

Before she has time to plead her case, his father raises his wooden cane and smacks her wrist. The sound rings in Lebreau’s ears, less like an alarm and more like a song.

“She’s lying,” his father says with certainty. Lebreau’s eyes are still on the woman, watching her face as she stifles a sob. It intrigues him, the crease of her brow and the quiver of her lip. He is handed the cane, and he is instructed, “Every time she lies, strike her.”

He nods without hesitation.

“How can I tell?” he asks, weighing the object in his hand until he finds a comfortable grip.

“Until she confesses,” his father explains, “everything she says is a lie.”

At his father’s prompting, the witch tells them the tale of her life bit by bit. Bit by bit, Lebreau strikes her. She tells them that she is a mother of two (he strikes her stomach), she tells them she has lived in the village her whole life (her right arm), she tells them her father used to (her left) herd sheep, she tells them (her right, again. this time there is a snap, and a hitch in her voice, a thrill down his spine) that she has a husband and (he strikes again. she covers her abdomen with her left arm. he strikes it until another snap sounds. she cries out and drops it to her side) she begins to sob, begging, pleading (he strikes her on her back. again. again.) she’s not a witch, she’s not a witch, she’s  _not_ —  

The truth is he does not doubt her honesty.

The greater truth is her honesty does not interest him  _half_ as much as her screams.

He strikes her head next, and the crack of her skull reverberates through him like a jolt of lightning. His father asks another question, but she stays silent. Lebreau raises the cane over his head and brings it down on her side with all the force of his body weight. 

Nothing. No scream, no sob, no shaking. He raises the cane again, brings it down again, over and over and over and over, waiting for a reaction, waiting for another spark of excitement.

“There’s no need to continue, Lebreau.”

It takes him a moment to drop the cane, even after his father speaks. A part of him does not believe that it could end so quickly — how many times had he struck her? Surely only five, six, seven — he had lost count. Not enough times for it to be over already. If she would scream again, or flinch, or cry — but she does not. She is motionless, and beneath the buzzing exhilaration he feels a pang of disappointment.

“Burn the body,” his father orders, turning to the inquisitor at the door. “A witch doesn’t deserve a burial.”

 

The cremation is slow, and quiet, solemn — dissatisfying in some indescribable way.

Flame should roar: these things should not end in  _silence_.

* * *

 

His assailant is still there when he comes to. He is somewhere between quaking with shock at what he has done – what he believes he has done – and mustering up the pragmatism to search through Lebreau’s belongings.

Lebreau cannot fault him for taking the opportunity, and, while he is distracted by it, he takes his own. The knife is on the ground beside him. Perhaps it had dislodged itself when he fell, perhaps the man had pulled it out himself and dropped it in his panic — how he would have loved to see that panic. Regardless, he tucks it into his pocket in an instant.

“Stay where you are!” the man shouts when he sees him move. Lebreau obliges. He crumples immediately, clutching his chest where the knife had torn through, using the rip in his clothes as a signpost for his injury.

“He-… ugh, help me,” he groans, feigning the pain he had felt moments before. “You — you can take what you want, just… help me,” he pleads through heavy breaths.

The man stills, watching him. “I — I thought you were… you were dead.”

“P-Please,” he repeats, keeping his shoulder turned from him. “You’re not a murderer.” He pauses to take a staggered breath. “You wouldn’t… you couldn’t kill someone.”

Not without shaking, at least. It’s laughable, really, but he manages to refrain. 

“I — no, I…” he stammers, inching towards him. “What — What do I do? Y-You were bleeding so much, I don’t…”

“Here,” he says, turning, “Help me cover the wound.”

His tone is too clear then, too collected, and the man notices. He freezes with his hand on his shoulder and seems to reconsider the situation, but he changes his mind a second too late.

“I don’t do this often, but I owe it to you,” says Fermet when the knife has settled between his ribs. “Before now all I could do was wonder about what it must feel like,” he continues, twisting his wrist. He laughs shortly. “As thrilling as it is to wonder — it’s always better to  _know_.”

The man coughs up a mouthful of blood, and his face contorts with surprise, as though he has only just realised what has happened to him.

“Because now I can see every little twinge of pain.” He smiles with his teeth. “Things I wouldn’t have thought about without your help! Can you feel your broken rib stabbing into you? Can you feel the blood filling your lungs? Can you feel yourself going cold? Can you feel your heartbeat slowing? I can imagine it so well now!”

The man tries to pull himself away. Lebreau grabs his shirt sleeve and drives the knife into him harder. He is rewarded with a choked cry.

“So many torments from one simple injury. I wish you could tell me what you feel at the end. The emotion, I mean. I’m sure it’s delightful.” He withdraws the blade to plunge it in again. “Is it desperation, panic, grief, anger, confusion?” The man responds with a spasm. “It’s a shame you can’t tell me.”

A few seconds pass, and the man stills. He shoves the body off of him as easily as brushing dirt off his shoes. He might as well be dirt, he thinks. There’s nothing interesting about a corpse; a corpse does not feel a thing, does not make a sound.

“Oh well,” mutters Lebreau as he wipes the blood off onto his shirt and stands. “I’ll have to be content with wondering for now.”

* * *

 

The trouble with mortal lives is that when they come to an end they are gone. There is no opportunity for amendment. If Lebreau could go back, he would; he has witnessed too many quiet deaths.

If he could go back, he would make sure he heard every last scream.

“Is it easier when everything stops?” he asks, leaning forward in his chair. “Does the darkness feel like relief? Or does it scare you?”

No one answers. No one answers because the only other person in the room is Czeslaw, and Czeslaw is still unconscious. From the stillness of his chest, his heart has not yet begun to beat; it could take time, depending on the injury, depending on how many injuries – and Lebreau had been curious as to how long he could drag it out, so the injuries had been plentiful, deep and scattered. If the healing was like a living thing, then he amused in confusing it, misleading it, overwhelming it. Torturing the panacea as much as the host, or so he likes to think.

“Does it feel like losing control? Is it easier when you’re awake to feel the moment the pain fades? Which one hurts more?”

No one answers, but a sharp intake of breath tells him Czeslaw will wake soon.

“You won’t tell me, will you?” He frowns to himself, sighing as though inconvenienced, but he cannot hide his excitement when he gets up to find his tools. 

“That’s not a problem, little Czes. I’m sure I can find out.”

He rifles through his drawers, pulling out scalpels and knives, setting them on the tabletop.

“Most people only get one death, and I try my best, truly — to make it worthwhile,” he muses. “To make it hurt as much as it can.”

There’s no point to a story if it doesn’t have a worthwhile ending, after all. Everyone loves a tragedy; tales of star-crossed lovers and sacrifice have entertained the masses for centuries. Who is he to deny the appeal? There is an inexorable need to feel the breadth of human emotion, of human experience — its highest peaks and its deepest lows, and its absolute limits.

Endings are the limits, or they should be. The breaking point, the last step on a cliffside before the fall — that is what an ending is supposed to be: satisfyingly complete, a cumulation of everything that came before. A mocking response to the highs of life. A great peak and then a great plumet; hopes turned to hopelessness, joy turned grief, trust turned to fear.

Endings are always agony, or they should be: terrible and magnificent, even in the most boring case when their only tragedy is the reality that an end exists at all.  

– And if Lebreau has ever hoped to achieve anything in his life, it is to perfect this tragedy.

“But you never have to worry about that, Czes,” he assures, glancing over his shoulder to see the boy shift. “If the end I decide for you is disappointing, I can just try again!”

 

There is an art form to be honed; he picks out a knife and crafts an ending from scratch.


	10. Fil - Diluculum (Dawn)

The sunrise was different here than it was in the outside world. Not quite right. Not quite complete. It was as though an artist had rendered the  _impression_ of a sunrise, but had lost interest before adding the final strokes, those tiny details that make it all come together. A smear of paint. A line of chalk. Something only the artist could see there but which anyone could see missing.

Fil did not know how she knew, but she knew  _when_ she knew.

They were sitting on the rooftop of the castle, the three of them, she and Elmer and herself. He had shown them the safest route to the highest bastion, climbing out of windows and pulling himself up onto ledges like a monkey  **—** with less grace. Every haphazard slide of his feet and forgetful flourish of his hands threatened to land him with a broken neck, but Elmer never showed a sign of concern, never a shred of doubt or hesitation, and that must have been why he never fell. What satisfaction could fortune have sending bad luck to a man who would just laugh it off? Perhaps Lady Fate harboured the same fear of him that the villagers did, fear of his invulnerability, of his immunity to their torments, fear of his fearlessness.

Fil was not concerned either, following him. Across the village she was shivering from cold and pain; this vessel of hers would expire in a matter of days; there were worse things than falling, and she could feel all of them in the pit of her stomach.

They were already precariously close to the edge, but Fil surprised herself with the urge to lean closer when light began to rise over the trees. This was the furthest she had ever been from the ground. Her nearest comparison was a hilltop in the forest; there she was running, tripping, stumbling  **—** lost and confused  **—** she had been so new then, new to these bodies and to earth, and snow, and heights, wary of anything that cast a shadow, wary of sunlight.

This felt different in every conceivable way. It felt calm. When she looked down, she knew that the dizziness was not fear, even if she did not know what to call it instead.

She could see beyond the forest from here, just barely. A white mountaintop, a winding, ashen road  **—** not the dirt trails they had in the village, but the kind paved with dark tar  **—** and the sun peaking over the horizon. It cast yellow over the sheets of snow like candlelight on the pages of a book. There was never this much colour from below, even during their brief daylight, shielded by tall trees and the mountain range beyond. The more she looked at it, the more she did not want to look away, which was an unusual feeling; she lived by  _means_ of looking away, turning her head from ugliness, looking down, shutting her eyes, shutting out. But she did not want to shut this out -- she wanted to let it in. If she could open her eyes wide enough maybe the sunlight would fill in all the hollow spaces in her mind. Maybe then she could smile. It was… It was  **—** she was not certain.

Fil did not have beauty enough in her memory to judge it against, but something in her said that this sight was beautiful.

With effort she pulled her eyes from it, at least one set of them, to observe Elmer. She wanted to see it confirmed, wanted to see the wonder reflected in his face. He was the only guide she had, the only person in this village who she could truly rely upon to find something positive in this world.

Elmer was smiling.

He was  _only_ smiling.

Elmer always smiled. He smiled when he met her. He smiled when he was killed. He smiled when the sun set and he smiled when it rose. Smiles were happy, happy was good. It was nice. And it was confusing. It was a little bit…

Fil did not know what it was a little bit of, exactly, but it made her furrow her brow. How wonderful could the moment be if all Elmer did was smile at it?

That was when she knew. The sunrise was beautiful here, but it was not quite right, and though she did not feel fear, she did not feel  _happiness_.

For a long time, Fil did not know what it meant to know this. It was difficult to estimate what she was missing when all she had to go off was the negative space, the absence, the where of where it was  _not_.

It was the same way she knew that there were fields of flowers and rainbows somewhere beyond the forest. Elmer told her there were, he even described them to her. He read her stories that had these things in them. He made them sound very real  **—** she never doubted they existed  **—** but she did not  _really_ know, not outside of the catalogue of factual information in her head. No matter how many times Elmer used these words, she could not create a picture in her head to go along with them  **—** or if she did, she could not be sure it was correct.

They were words, that was all, like ‘smile’ was just a word before she met him.  

Smile was just a word before she met him, and then she saw it and it became a  _thing_ , an expression, an emotion, a picture in her head. If she was plunged into darkness and never saw a smile again, she could still think  _smile_ and her mind would bring his to the forefront.

For a long time, when she thought  _sunrise_ , all she had was an unfinished painting.

* * *

They left the village and drove for almost a day. For miles and miles the world beyond the forest did not seem to differ from the world within: the same white snow, the same conifers, the same grey skies. By the time they reached the airport it was dark, and all Fil had seen of the great beyond was a shadow slowly falling across it.

Elmer had to talk to someone on the phone for a long time about ‘passports’ and ‘yeah, sorta like twins’ and ‘c’mon, can’t you bend the rules a little for an old friend?’. They waited in the lobby, which was overcrowded and noisy, bustling with people carrying overstuffed bags and suitcases. Dozens passed by them and not a single one acknowledged them, but this was nothing like the pointed way the villagers had ignored her. This was not pretending not to see her out of fear or spite  **—** this was simply not seeing her at all. She was unnoticed, just like every other stranger in this room, even Sylvie in all her beauty, even Nile in his colorful mask. She was learning that the outside world was too busy to stop and observe.

She sat. She watched herself sit across from her. She watched herself pace. Elmer spoke and spoke and spoke.

She drifted off, and when she woke up she was in a more comfortable seat with Elmer sat beside her. The room was unlike anything she had seen before, white and metallic, with an oddly curved overhead. There was a small port window to Elmer’s side, and he was staring out, still as a statue. She wondered for a moment if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open, but he noticed her peering around him and gave a smile.

“You missed take-off,” he said, then quickly waved his hand, “But, hey, don’t get said about that  **—** you’re just in time for the sunrise!”

Another her, next to Sylvie in the seat closer to the window, looked out through the clouds.

There was a moment of clarity where an absence became a presence and she knew, suddenly, what she did not know she had been missing.

The dawn was different here in the outside world; it was not just yellow sunlight cast onto plain white snow. There was nothing pale about this warmth — it was orange and pink, violet mixing into the blue of the ocean stretched out beneath them and settling as soft pastels onto the low clouds. It was not flat colour; it was dynamic and shifting, melting and dripping in a way it never could in the endless cold of the village.

This was the world she had been looking for, the world she never thought she would see. This was its dawn.

Elmer clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Pretty neat, huh? It’s not every day you get to see one from the sky.”

She nodded slowly, never taking her attention away from the sight. She filed it away in her mind; she knew that the next time she heard the word sunrise, she would see this.


End file.
